Tunisia held its first free municipal elections today but only one in three eligible voters cast ballots, reflecting frustration at the slow pace of change since the 2011 revolution in the cradle of the Arab Spring.
The election has been touted as another milestone on the road to democracy in the North African country, which has been praised for its transition from decades of dictatorship.
But Tunisia has struggled with persistent political, security and economic problems as well as corruption since the revolution, and turnout was just 33.7 per cent of the 5.3 million eligible voters in today's poll.
A polling institute gave the Islamist Ennahdha movement 25 per cent of the vote, ahead of its coalition partner, the secular Nidaa Tounes party of President Beji Caid Essebsi on 22 per cent, as experts predicted, with smaller parties far behind.
"The government has promised a lot and achieved little," said former prime minister Mehdi Jamaa. "Tunisians haven't voted much."
Prime Minister Youssef Chahed said the low turnout was "a negative sign, a strong message... for politicians."
"I'm not going to make the same mistake again." Rafik Halouani, head of the election monitoring agency Mourakiboun, said he feared that young Tunisians "no longer believe in elections as a source of change, which is very serious for democracy."